Achieve

How Experts Use Forum Marketing to Get More Customers

Forum marketing is an excellent way to market yourself and your products for free.

The first thing you should do when you’re new to a forum is create an interesting profile. Have a picture of yourself, or a picture related to the niche. If you’re in the zoo animals niche, you might put a picture of a zoo animal. In the tennis niche, it could be a picture of your favorite tennis pro. You get the idea.

Next, start making posts that answer questions. You should not mention your website or product-- yet. Being a member of a forum, you’ll be there to give people "life saving" answers to their questions and post an occasional thread of your own to spark a discussion or provide helpful tips.

You want to give people the goods. Add value. Become the expert. Become the go to guy.

There are a swarm of ready to buy and willing to buy people in forums. They're doing their research and want to know what is out there. It is your job to position yourself as someone that can help them by being the leading person in the forums.

And guess what?

As forum members start to recognize your contributions, they’ll start looking for your posts, hanging on your every word!

Imagine creating a huge buzz--for free!

Check the rules of the forum to make sure they allow links in signatures. If they do, you can add a link to your site. Link it to a squeeze page, so you can start building a list of forum visitors that you can market to later.

DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT do anything to draw attention to your signature - such as continually telling people, “I have more information on the site in my sig file.” Just keep posting as you have been, giving out helpful information.

It is an undercover- yet effective way to sell to people.

After you’ve built up a solid reputation at the forum, people may start seeking you for more "customized" advice. This means money for you. You can begin to blatantly promote your products and services BUT this is only after you built this reputation.

Keep answering questions but do find the time to monetize the growing crowd you built.

You might even be able to JV with the forum owner after you’ve become rather well-known around the forum. You could offer a standard JV, or you could just ask the forum owner to be your affiliate. You might offer them a special deal, with a higher percentage of commission than normal affiliates – or a discount reserved just for their members.

Respect the forum boundaries. Don’t private message people and ask them to check out your site unless you already established a previous relationship with them.

You can draw special attention to a project of yours is if someone makes a post that specifically asks for recommendations about products.